Randall J. Keeney, a priest at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, writes the N&R:

If you are going to print articles on "faith," please respect and consider the ideas of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others. When you reduce "faith" to the cross and only include Christians, you continue the cultural and religious bigotry that feeds the suspicion, hatred and war that we see around the world.

This ain't rocket science. It is simply a matter of respect and honor.

The invocation of bigotry, hatred and war seems a bit overstated to me, but he does have a point.

On the other hand, the paper has included some real diversity in its "faith" coverage, and not everyone liked that, either.

Comments

[John Robinson]

The constraint on our end, of course, is that space isn't unlimited in the paper. The cross representation he refers to was one of six iconic devices we used to illustrate the various points of the Social Capital survey.

[Ishmael]

There's no way you're going to be able to represent all faiths viewpoints in the newspaper.
However, this being said, it is also wrong to assume that the majority of readers of that paper will always and forever be of one faith. Taking this a step further, that all readers of one faith practice that faith in one manner.
Therefore it is impossible for a news source to be truly representative of the community unless it takes a purely unbiased religious stance.
It is lazy journalism to do anything but. Not to try to be inclusive, but rather to avoid projecting a religious viewpoint on the stories of the day.
So will the "devout" quit reading the newspaper? It depends on what they want - news or dogma.

[Steve K.]

Gandhi famously gave Christians this advice: "I would suggest first of all that all of you Christians, missionaries and all begin to live more like Jesus Christ. Second practice your religion without adulterating or toning it down. Third emphasise love and make it your working force, for love is central in Christianity. Fourth, study the non-Christian religions more sympathetically to find the good that is in them, so that you might have a more sympathetic approach to the people" (from "Gandhi: Portrayal of a Friend" by E. Stanley Jones).

Worth remembering again.